


Breathe! Breathe! Breathe!

by Sjukdom



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-13
Updated: 2016-12-13
Packaged: 2018-09-08 09:34:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8839495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sjukdom/pseuds/Sjukdom
Summary: Only one thing that he had experienced in those few horrible minutes remained as intense as it had been then - the feeling of a soundless vacuum, the sense of the space that had always been filled with Ed's breathing and now was empty.





	

Memory is a tricky thing. The few minutes after Butch's unsuccessful attempt at strangling Edward had been filled with many emotions and feelings - fear, grief, anger, desperation, hope, these ones had stood apart. Oswald remembered them, the freezing numbness spreading from the depth of his stomach, the dryness in his mouth that made his tongue seem too big and as dead as a piece of useless meat, blocking his voice from coming out of his throat. Remembered the trembling of his hands and the sudden heaviness of his feet. The cold sweat, burning his skin and the hot tears burning his eyes. 

 

Of course, he remembered it all. But somehow, these memories had faded away with the time, become less colorful and seemed less real, like a fleeting bad dream. Their stinging pain had ceased. Only one thing that he had experienced in those few horrible minutes remained as intense as it had been then - the feeling of a soundless vacuum, the sense of the space that had always been filled with Ed's breathing and now was empty.

 

Right then Oswald hadn't had time to perceive this sudden emptiness, the lack of something he, sadly, had gotten used to take for granted. A strange thing to say, for only a few minutes before Oswald had felt his breath on his face - when Ed jumped at him out of nowhere just to wish him luck. The words were accompanied by the warm tickling feeling his breath left on Oswald's skin. The illuminations in the club were too bright, hiding Ed’s face in the shadow of a green halo created by a fixture shining behind him, a beautiful joke of light and darkness. He was too busy to give proper attention to this light movement of air warmed by Ed’s body that brushed his ear and cheek and was gone.

 

Later, for one short moment that could easily be an eternity he was thinking that it had been gone forever. His memory had hidden this thought at first, giving Oswald enough time to deal with other emotions. They flooded into this newly made void, replacing the absence of Edward’s breathing with other sounds: screams of the crowd, echoes of a gunshot, last dying notes of music and his own rapid panicky gulps of stale tasteless air. All lights turned to blinding whiteness. Oswald didn't even feel the pain in his legs after he dropped on his knees, bending over Ed’s helpless rag doll-like body. He must have felt this horrible silence right then, no inhale, no exhale, but the realization came much later. Their reflections on the smooth surface of the floor looked like black ghosts of industrial fumes. 

 

Somebody was crying out the word “breathe” over and over until it had lost its meaning and became no more than a devastating cadence of sobs and short groans. Perhaps it was Oswald himself. His memory gave no answer to that. 

 

Oswald didn't notice a single sign that Ed was alive, he paid no attention to the trembling of eyelids or the dilation of pupils, the reaction to the bright light. Only when Ed took a breath, a deep and greedy breath, breaking that silence did he understand. The sense of relief and joy overwhelmed him as he bent lower to reach Edward's face, hearing him breathing, feeling him breathing, seeing him breathing - nostrils flaring, chest heaving. It was weird, as if he, who had suffered, was giving Oswald artificial respiration, a strange reversal of roles, the wounded one helping the doctor. Oswald started laughing nervously, clutching Ed in his arms and Ed laughed with him, as if he could read his mind and knew exactly what Oswald was thinking. His laughter was hoarse, quiet, his breaths heavy and long. The air that had been nearly stolen from him came in painfully and came out in series of bad wet coughs. But Ed was here again, with him. The void was gone.

 

It did come back, it awakened again in Oswald's memory. He felt it as soon as he helped Ed to crawl into his bed, tucked him in and wished him goodnight before going back into his own room. He tried to sleep, but something disturbed him, something didn't let him rest. The feeling was much alike the one that forces you to probe the empty place where your bad tooth had been only this morning with your tongue. The lack of something you got used to, that seemed to be here all the time. Oswald was turning in his bed restlessly, trying to find his own empty place that itched and hurt. He shuddered at every creak the old bed made and at every gust of wind behind his window - so silent everything was these sounds seemed as loud as roars of thunder. But not silent enough to hear Ed’s breathing and to be sure that everything was okay. Only then Oswald remembered this great vast nothingness that replaced the familiar sound, the most important sound in his life that he wasn't hearing for several agonizing minutes. And the mere memory of it was so terrible he immediately got out of bed and limped to Edward's room. Ed only half-opened his eyes to look at Oswald when he climbed into his bed next to him and fell asleep again with a weak smile on his lips. Oswald closed his eyes, too. He laid his head on Ed’s pillow that smelt of him, carefully covered himself with his blanket that was as warm as his body underneath, heard his still hoarse breathing and in the next moment was fast asleep too.

 

He had never slept better in his entire life.

 

Memories are a tricky thing. Time had washed away most of the memories related to the incident in the club, but one about the silent nothingness had haunted Oswald long after that. It didn't go away, turning into the need to hear Ed breathing. Sometimes Oswald tried to get back into his own bed, but after several hours without sleep, torn by deeply seated frustration and fear he came back to Ed and cuddled up next to him. Unconsciously Oswald synchronized his breathing with the rhythm of Ed's own and it felt like he kept it safely inside himself in case someone would try to steal it again. Oswald's sleepy mind pictured him a scene where he was giving the breathing he saved back to Ed, blowing it gently between his lips, nearly touching them with his own. 

 

Oswald smiled, drifting off.

 

This scene had a good chance of coming to life. After all, Edward and he were sleeping together now. And they needed other memories to cherish.


End file.
